


Fire Bug

by belovedmuerto



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AU, Elemental Masters, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-30
Updated: 2011-07-30
Packaged: 2017-10-22 00:23:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/231576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belovedmuerto/pseuds/belovedmuerto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is on fire. No, really, he is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fire Bug

**Author's Note:**

> So, yeah. This is just a wild AU sort of thing that was begging to be written. If you're familiar with Mercedes Lackey's Elemental Masters series, I sort of took that idea and had my way with it. This is what happened. I should really read the most recent novel in that series. ANYWAY. This was originally posted on my tumblr, but then tumblr lost the damn thing somehow and then only found most of it so the ending isn't quite the same but I think I mostly got it back. Lesson learned, don't just save your stuff on-line. BACKUPS ARE YOUR FRIENDS, FOLKS.

Sherlock returned home from Barts one afternoon to find his flatmate sitting on the floor in the lounge in front of a crackling fire.

No, wait. The fire wasn’t in the fireplace. The fire was _on_ John.

“John,” he breathed, blanket suddenly in his hands, bag of fetal pigs forgotten on the floor. “What the hell?"

He stopped just short of throwing the blanket over the good doctor when his brain caught up with his observations. (Sometimes it stutters when he’s had a shock. All the times that has happened so far have been due to John Watson.)

John is looking up at him, consternation written all over his features. The fire crawls all over his naked torso, but it isn’t burning him. His skin is still that perfect shade of haven’t-you-been-back-from-the-desert-for-months-why-are-you-still-tan? He isn’t screaming in agony or even _trying_ to put the fire out.

And the fire has eyes. Little glowing ember eyes. It has feet, lots of feet. It has tails. And they’re all _looking_ at him. They’re glaring, in fact.

“You weren’t supposed to find out about this,” John says, rising to his feet. The little creatures in the fire glare harder, and John murmurs something soothing that Sherlock can’t make out is that even a real language?

Sherlock’s brain still hasn’t quite got over its stutter. It’s babbling at him about impossibilities and experiments and why he should be throwing water on John right this very instant. But John is fine. John is more than fine, if he’s on fire and not burning.

Sherlock reaches out to touch, but John backs up a step quickly, then grabs Sherlock’s wrist when he doesn’t get the hint. Sherlock’s whole arm goes cold, and numbness starts in his fingertips.

“No, Sherlock. They’ll burn you.”

“John, how are you making my arm cold? What are those little fire-things?”

“Your arm is cold? You can _see_ them?”

“I won’t repeat myself. I can’t feel my fingers any longer.”

“Sorry.” John lets go, and feeling slowly starts crawling pins and needles up Sherlock’s arm.

Sherlock looks at him expectantly.

“Salamanders. They’re fire elementals.”

“Those words make no sense.”

“I’m an elemental master, Sherlock. I control the element of Fire. Well, really I sort of politely ask it to do what I’d like it to do and if it feels like, it does it for me. Did you really never notice how little firewood we go through despite the fact there’s always a fire in the grate?”

Sherlock shrugs. “Thought it was electric.”

John blinks at him.

“And those?” Sherlock gestures at the little fire creatures that are still glaring at him. “They’re glaring at me.”

“I can’t believe you can see them. You must have an affinity of some sort.” He breaks off and murmurs to them again, he must be talking to them, and they stop their collective glaring. “And your arm got cold when I grabbed you?”

“Yes, quite.” Sherlock flexes his now vaguely sore fingers. “What does it feel like? I can see it doesn’t burn you.”

“Warm. They sort of tickle, sometimes.”

Sherlock looks at them, wistfully. One or two glare back at him and he swears one of them sticks its little forked fire-tongue out at him.

“Would you like to feel it?”

“Yes.”

John nods. “This should work, I think. If it burns at all even slightly, you will tell me _immediately_. Roll back your sleeve.”

Sherlock asks why with his eyes but obeys.

“They’ll burn your clothes. They can’t help, they’re made of fire after all.”

“Odd.”

“Yeah, it’s a bit weird if you’re not from a family that can do this sort of thing.”

“I wonder….”

“Oh that can’t be good. Give me your hand.”

Sherlock does so, because he trusts John implicitly. John’s still chuffed as hell at that. John laces their fingers together and Sherlock’s immediately start going numb again; John turns their arms over so that one of the little salamanders can walk down his forearm and across John’s fingers, crackling at him the whole way. John just chuckles and murmurs something back.  
With what Sherlock is nearly willing to swear is a sigh, the salamander crosses onto his palm. His hand starts to warm immediately, but that's all. It isn't burning, it doesn't hurt.

“It does tickle.”

John watches with an indulgent smile as Sherlock stares in wonder at the creature walking around on his hand and forearm. When he blows on it gently, it basks and preens.

“I think they’re coming around to you, Sherlock.”

“What do you mean?”

“It likes you.”

“Oh. So, they’re not you?”

“No, they’re separate from me. But they’re similar to… friends. Alien friends, anyway. Inhuman friends.”

“Pets?”

John laughs. “God no.”

“How often do you...?”

“Commune with them?

“Yes, that.”

“Every day. I feed off them, they off me. It’s mutually beneficial.”

“How?”

“The fire here, or sometimes just a candle in my room.”

“That’s why your room always smells of beeswax.”

“Yes.”

John continues to watch Sherlock watching the salamander as it crawls all over his bare skin, trying to eat the hairs off the back of his arm. He sees the question start to form in Sherlock’s extraordinary brain and answers before Sherlock can ask.

“Yes.”

Sherlock looks up at him, realizes what John has just said just as John speaks again.

“Within reason. _My_ reason, not yours. And only so long as they agree, you can’t get them to do anything they don’t want to do and I won’t try.”

“John,” Sherlock breathes, eyes going bright at the prospect of experimentation.

“And for god's sake, only at reasonable hours of the day, Sherlock.”

Sherlock just grins at him.


End file.
